Although Richard and I have “wet” fly fished for many years at a local trout park, we had yet to experience “real” fly fishing, and we certainly weren’t prepared for a day of fly fishing on the South Fork of the Snake River August 19. But, never fear, our guide was there to assist us!

Grey, a very patient and knowledgeable young man, knew the words to say and the way to say them to get across the greatest knowledge in the least amount of time. After all, we were just going to be on the river for about eight hours, and he had to help us catch fish to make our day complete (and help encourage us to come back).

Grey said there are basically ten main points to fly fishing. Although he didn’t actually line them out, at the end of the day I came up with the following list, how they helped us catch fish, and how they can also help us be better stock-handlers.(more…)

We’ve received a couple of questions on whether we are involved with or endorse a new livestock tub system named BudFlow®. The answer is NO! It has nothing whatsoever to do with Bud Williams, the Bud Box, or the Proper Stockmanship we teach.

This article was published May 30, 2016 in Drovers, and somehow we missed promoting it on our web page at the time. I’m going with “better late than never” and posting it now! These misconceptions are things we cover in our schools and some are really important differences between Proper Stockmanship and some other stockmanship “methods” or thoughts.

Eunice and I attended a 2-day “Low Stress Livestock Handling Clinic” taught by Dawn Hnatow (www.cattleupstockmanship.com) and Whit Hibbard, the man behind the Stockmanship Journal (www.stockmanshipjournal.com), and hosted by Ryan Brand at the K Barr C Ranch near Burbank, Oklahoma.

It was a great school with lots of good information and sharing. It’s important that people who have a good knowledge of the true work of Bud Williams spread that word so more and more people can have an opportunity to learn and benefit from proper stockhandling.

It is an honor to be in the same picture with many of the best, most experienced, and knowledgeable stockmen and stockwomen in the world. Thanks for having a great school.

Because neither Richard or I like to mow our lawn, and because we have all these handy “automatic” lawnmowers, we do what we call “weed and feed” with our cattle.

Today I’m using our newly (exactly a week ago) weaned calves to do the work for me. I set up polywire around my flowers and shrubs in all sorts of jigs and jogs to get the most of our grazing. It was so nice to go out in the pasture, drive the calves up (got a nice buck-out along the way!), and put them into this maze to do my lawn-mowing for me!(more…)